Now that the World Championships in Budapest have come to a close, let’s take a look back at the numbers and see what’s interesting.

To start with, how does Budapest compare to Rio? I took a look at what it took to final and what it took to medal in each individual event (men’s events in blue, women’s in red, with the bubble size proportional to the distance):

The distribution is impressively random. Roughly half the events were faster to final and to medal in each meet. The men’s 200 free was very nearly identical in both meets (1:46.23 to final and 1:45.23 to medal in Rio, 1:46.28 to final and 1:45.23 to medal in Budapest). Other interesting things that stood out to me in the comparison:

All four distance freestyle events were slower in Budapest.

Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte have had a stranglehold on the 200 IM for a decade and a half, neither competed in Budapest. And yet, the men’s 200 IM took a much faster time to make the final (1:57.81, compared to 1:58.85) and a much faster time to medal (1:56.28, compared to 1:57.05). Who had that on their list of predictions for the meet?

Even if it’s not well represented on the chart, the men’s 100 fly. In Rio it took a 51.10 to tie for silver. That time would’ve been good for 8th place in Budapest.

The winning times from Rio in the women’s sprint freestyles (24.07 and 52.70) wouldn’t have even made the podium this past week, finishing 5th and 4th. In the opposite direction, the winning times from Budapest in the women’s 200 fly (2:05.26) and men’s 100 back (52.44) would not have made the podium in Rio, finishing 4th and 5th, respectively.

I had previously looked at the most dominant wins the LC Worlds and Olympics History (at least, since 1986) and suggested that Sarah Sjostrom might make a run for history in the 50m butterfly. It’s one thing to say on paper how much she might win by, it’s quite another to actually see a 0.78s win play out on camera. This now becomes the 2nd largest margin of victory, in percentage terms, since 1986. The top wins overall from the meet:

Rank

Margin of Victory

Swimmer

Event

1

3.07%

Sarah Sjostrom

50 Fly

2

2.25%

Adam Peaty

100 Breast

3

2.01%

Katie Ledecky

1500 Free

4

2.00%

Adam Peaty

50 Breast

5

1.50%

Yuliya Efimova

200 Breast

Caeleb Dressel

100 Fly

Sometimes you’ll have events that are practically predetermined – the outcome matches the psych sheet. But sometimes, you have some surprise entries in the finals and on the podium. Here are the lowest seeds to make the final:

Rank

Seed

Swimmer

Event

Finish

1

39th

Sergii Shevtsov

100 Free

8th

2

23rd

Antani Ivanov

200 Fly

8th

3

22nd

Andrius Sidlauskas

100 Breast

6th

4

20th

Rachel Nicol

50 Breast

8th

5

19th

Farida Osman

50 Fly

3rd

And the lowest seeds to win a medal, of any color:

Rank

Seed

Swimmer

Event

Medal

1

19th

Farida Osman

50 Fly

Bronze

2

16th

Kirill Prigoda

100 Breast

Bronze

3

11th

Pernille Blume

100 Free

Bronze

James Guy

100 Fly

Silver

5

10th

Katinka Hosszu

200 Fly

Bronze

Kristof Milak

100 Fly

Silver

And the lowest seeds to win an event:

Rank

Seed

Swimmer

Event

1

6th

Caeleb Dressel

50 Free

2

5th

Anton Chupkov

200 Breast

Caeleb Dressel

100 Free

Etienne Medeiros

50 Back

5

4th

Simone Manuel

100 Free

Chase Kalisz

200 IM

Chad le Clos

200 Fly

FINA has a point system that they calculate based on a ratio of the time to the world record as of the previous year, using the formula 1000 x (WR / Time)3. Using FINA’s point system, here are the top individual swims from Budapest:

Rank

Points

Swimmer

Event

Time

1

1055

Adam Peaty

50 Breast Semifinal

25.95 (WR)

2

1050

Adam Peaty

50 Breast Final

25.99

3

1037

Adam Peaty

50 Breast Prelim

26.10 (WR)

4

1020

Sarah Sjostrom

4×100 Free Relay, leadoff

51.71 (WR)

5

1010

Lilly King

100 Breast Final

1:04.13 (WR)

6

1008

Lilly King

50 Breast Final

29.40 (WR)

7

1007

Sarah Sjostrom

50 Free Semifinal

23.67 (WR)

8

1005

Sarah Sjostrom

50 Free Final

23.69

9

1001

Kylie Masse

100 Back Final

58.10 (WR)

Anton Chupkov

200 Breast Final

2:06.96 (CR)

11

999

Yuliya Efimova

100 Breast Semifinal

1:04.36

12

997

Sarah Sjostrom

100 Fly Final

55.53 (CR)

Caeleb Dressel

100 Fly Final

49.86

A few interesting points about this table.

First, this was a great meet for breaststroke! Seven of the top eleven swims were from the breaststrokers.

Second, Anton Chupkov’s swim scores over 1000 points despite not being a world record, since the base time used is Akihiro Yamaguchi’s old world record of 2:07.01 and not Ippei Watanabe’s current record of 2:06.67, because the latter was set in January 2017. Using the world record as of the start of the championships, his point score would be 993.

Third, Dressel’s 100 fly “only” scores 997 points, tying for the 12th best score with Sarah Sjostrom’s 100 fly final. This is due to using the true world record, Phelps’ 49.82 from 2009, as the base time. But that really just seems like the wrong way to look at this swim. You could make the same claim about the two suit records that were broken as well: Gemma Spofforth’s 100 back and Britta Steffen’s 50 free. If we instead used the previous textile bests for the base times, then we would get a different picture:

Rank

Points

Swimmer

Event

Time

1

1055

Adam Peaty

50 Breast Semifinal

25.95 (WR)

2

1050

Adam Peaty

50 Breast Final

25.99

3

1037

Adam Peaty

50 Breast Prelim

26.10 (WR)

4

1034**

Caeleb Dressel

100 Fly Final

49.86 (Textile Best)

5

1020

Sarah Sjostrom

4×100 Free Relay, leadoff

51.71 (WR)

6

1020**

Sarah Sjostrom

50 Free Semifinal

23.67 (WR)

7

1019**

Caeleb Dressel

100 Fly Semifinal

50.07 (Textile Best)

8

1018**

Caeleb Dressel

100 Fly Prelim

50.08 (Textile Best)

9

1017**

Sarah Sjostrom

50 Free Final

23.69

10

1010

Lilly King

100 Breast Final

1:04.13 (WR)

11

1008

Lilly King

50 Breast Final

29.40 (WR)

12

1004**

Kylie Masse

100 Back Final

58.10 (WR)

13

1000**

Caeleb Dressel

50 Free Final

21.15 (=Textile Best)

14

999

Yuliya Efimova

100 Breast Semifinal

1:04.36

15

997

Sarah Sjostrom

100 Fly Final

55.53 (CR)

This fundamentally seems more right to me. Adam Peaty’s 50 breast performance still reigns supreme, but Dressel deserves to be on this list too.

After this week, the most individual world records currently held, with asterisks indicating those swimmers that broke a world record this week:

Rank

# of World Records

Swimmer

1

4

Sarah Sjostrom*

2

3

Katie Ledecky

Michael Phelps

4

2

Cesar Cielo

Paul Biedermann

Adam Peaty*

Lilly King*

Katinka Hosszu

Turning now to World Championship medals, there’s several ways we can look at the medal history. For each list, an asterisk will indicate a swimmer that achieved the relevant distinction in Budapest (whether that’s winning an event again, a medal, etc).

Most Individual World Championship Wins in a Single Event, with Sjostrom and Hosszu one step closer to Phelps’ standard of five world titles in a single event:

Rank

# of World Titles

Swimmer

Event

1

5

Michael Phelps

200 Fly

2

4

Katinka Hosszu*

400 IM

Sarah Sjostrom*

100 Fly

Ryan Lochte

200 IM

Aaron Peirsol

200 Back

Grant Hackett

1500 Free

7

3

Camille Lacourt*

50 Back

Federica Pellegrini*

200 Free

Katie Ledecky*

400 Free, 800 Free, and 1500 Free

Katinka Hosszu*

200 IM

Sun Yang*

400 Free, 800 Free

Daniel Gyurta

200 Breast

Ryan Lochte

200 Back

Michael Phelps

100 Fly, 200 IM

Aaron Peirsol

200 Back

Alexander Popov

100 Free

Ian Thorpe

400 Free

Most Individual World Championship Medals in a single event:

Rank

# of Medals

Swimmer

Event

1

7

Federica Pellegrini*

200 Free

2

6

Cameron van der Burgh*

50 Breast

Ryan Lochte

200 IM

4

5

Ryan Lochte

200 Back

Michael Phelps

100 Fly, 200 Fly

Aaron Peirsol

200 Back

Grant Hackett

400 Free

8

4

Camille Lacourt*

50 Back

Emily Seebohm*

100 Back

Katinka Hosszu*

200 IM, 400 IM

Ranomi Kromowidjojo*

50 Free

Sarah Sjostrom*

100 Fly

Sun Yang*

400 Free

Cameron van der Burgh

100 Breast

Daniel Gyurta

200 Breast

Ryan Cochrane

1500 Free

Jessica Hardy

50 Breast

Wu Peng

200 Fly

Gerhard Zandberg

50 Back

Kosuke Kitajima

200 Breast

Laszlo Cseh

200 IM

Leisel Jones

100 Breast

Liam Tancock

50 Back

Marleen Veldhuis

50 Free

Michael Phelps

200 Free, 200 IM

Natalie Coughlin

100 Back

Therese Alshammar

50 Fly, 50 Free

Ian Crocker

100 Fly

Pieter van den Hoogenband

200 Free

Grant Hackett

1500 Free

Most Individual World Championship Titles, Overall:

Rank

# of World Titles

Swimmer

1

15

Michael Phelps

2

10

Katie Ledecky*

Ryan Lochte

4

9

Sun Yang*

5

7

Katinka Hosszu*

Sarah Sjostrom*

Aaron Peirsol

Grant Hackett

Most Individual World Championship Medals, Overall. Notably, tied in 4th place on this list are the Hungarian stars earning medals at home: Hosszu and Cseh.

Why the effot to skew things for Dressel. Everybody has to compete against suited records. It’s not like Dressel’s event was the only one where high tech suits were worn. Overall, great analysis, but seriously consider that you might have an American/Dressel bias. I noticed this also during the discussion about Sjostrom being the “Queen of the Sprints”. Again, without skewing anything, Sjostrom had the largest margin of victory. Four of the top twelve FINA point swims (compared to just one for Dressel). Why the effort to keep finding a way to include Dressel? Seriously, think about this.